The finest watches in the world

Menu

Monthly Archives: October 2017

Zenith confirms the generalized move towards vintage styles and smaller case sizes with the Heritage 146 chronograph. It is directly inspired by a 1960s watch and it has a 38 mm-diameter steel case, 12.45 mm thick. A water resistance of 10 atm (100 metres) is higher than usual and gives you the assurance that you…

Montblanc presented a new version of its 1858 Chronograph Tachymeter Limited Edition on 17 October 2017 at SIAR in Mexico. It’s a watch that shows just how successful Montblanc has been in its treatment of the Minerva brand, part of the Montblanc world since 2007. Montblanc has retained the Minerva identity along with the historic…

At 38 millimetres in diameter and 10.77 millimetres thickness, the new Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe by Blancpain is an example of what seems to be a new trend, small, slim diving watches. Its colour, named “abyss blue” by the brand, is also on-trend. In 2013, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Fifty Fathoms, the Bathyscaphe was given…

The distinctive feature of the Blancpain Tribute to Fifty Fathoms MIL-SPEC diving watch is the water-tightness indicator that appears on the dial. It may seem like an act of courage on the part of Blancpain – after all, surely the point of a diving watch is that you can safely take it underwater knowing that…

Rado has presented three diving-inspired watches as part of their vintage Captain Cook collection, and two of them are 37-millimetre watches, so small, unisex. For a few years now there has been a swing away from very large watches, but these new Captain Cook models show that there is a definite trend towards small case…

In some watches, a notable feature on the dial is the power reserve indicator. This is a useful feature in the case of a hand-wound movement, but it is increasingly appearing on automatic watches, where it can be helpful as a reminder to put the watch on, or wind it, if you’ve left it in…

The DiaMaster Power Reserve by Rado is distinctive for the power reserve display on the dial. The case is in high-tech ceramic, which has a very high scratch resistance, five times higher than a comparable stainless steel. It is also 25% lighter than steel. The watch is fairly large at 43 mm, 12.3 mm thick,…

This is not a new watch. It has been around since 2011, updated in 2014, and now available on Mr Porter as well as the Nomos website. It offers the GMT function in an unusual format, and in fact it resembles a world-time watch even though in actual fact it only provides simultaneous times in…

The gentleman is one of the fashion and lifestyle trend focuses for 2017 and beyond. There are probably thousands of possible descriptions of a gentleman, but in visual terms, one definition could be “sobriety and eccentricity elegantly combined.” Here we take a look at some of the watches specifically offered by brands in relation to…

Once upon a time a fine gun was part of a gentleman’s armoury. Thankfully today this is no longer the case, but there are still the intriguing connections between gunmaking and watchmaking – which share terms like “barrel” and “calibre” – and this watch by F.P. Journe has a very close relationship with the ancient…

Part of the new watches introduced for the brand’s 185th anniversary, the Longines Record has a very classical design, with Roman numerals, blued steel hands, and a steel case. It is the first watch by Longines to have a chronometer COSC-certified movement, ETA A31.L11, with a silicon balance spring. The self-winding movement has 22 jewels,…

Roger Dubuis, founder of the like-named brand, died on 14 October 2017. He was 79. Roger Dubuis, born in 1938, started his career in about 1957 at Longines in Saint-Imier, working for nine years on repairs in the after-sales department. In 1966 he moved to Patek Philippe, working on complication movements before setting up his…

If there were a competition for the best gentleman’s watch, Breguet would enter the Classique 7147. The brand staged the launch of its “Classic Tour” in London on 4 October 2017, “honouring the art of living of a true gentleman” by presenting craftspeople who emulated “the day of a perfect gentleman who, after slipping his…

For ten years now, Hermès have been combining their French DNA with Swiss watchmaking, and their watches include complications that provide an alternative, ironic depiction of time. The Hermès vision is not about performance and the absolute control of time, but rather a more playful view of this fourth dimension. In 2011, Arceau Le temps…

The story of Breguet n° 3624 is a nice fit for today’s burgeoning use of “gentleman” as a marketing term. The Marquis Malaspina went to Paris in 1881 and took the opportunity to visit Breguet’s store, at that time at 12 Rue de la Paix. He went to Breguet because their watches were simply the…

Wow, I fell in love with this as soon as I saw it. The NOMOS Glashütte Lambda 42mm is one of the piece currently featured on the men’s style website Mr Porter, which has recently launched a selection of Nomos Glashütte watches. With a rose gold case, it is higher-end than most of the brand’s…

The perpetual calendar chronograph is a neat concept because it can measure intervals of time that range from the smallest feasible for a mechanical watch, an eighth or sixth of a second, right through to the four years of the leap-year cycle. The combination of these two classic complications creates complex, expensive watches. Only a…

The Patek Philippe 5270R Perpetual Calendar Chronograph combines two classic watch complications into a single timepiece that privileges clarity on the dial. Most Patek Philippe watches reflect the idea of a practical timepiece, but this is something of an exception because the date subdial interrupts two of the three chapter rings, the seconds scale, and…

The L.U.C XPS Twist QF Fairmined by Chopard is a watch that shows a lot of thought “out of the box.” The designers have succeeded in creating something totally different to anything else on the market by means of an unusual stamped sunburst effect, with a spiral pattern that justifies the name chosen for the…

The Patek Philippe 5372 split-seconds chronograph and perpetual calendar, presented in 2017, follows on from the 2015 Patek Philippe 5370, a split-seconds chronograph with two conventional chronograph pushers. Like that model, the 5372 has a circular platinum case. The dial is completely different, with simple Arabic numerals applied onto a gold dial with blue sunburst…